The present invention concerns power stations that use fossil fuels. Such power stations produce large quantities of greenhouse gases, notably CO2, which it is necessary to control.
These pressures make it necessary to resolve, in an economic fashion and with minimum impact, new problems such as the capture of CO2 from power station flue gases including by the use of renewable energy of the biomass type, non-fossil carbon for example.
Moreover, the growing prospect of the imminent exhaustion of petroleum resources and the requirement to find a replacement for them for vehicle transport, also an important source of CO2 emissions, leads to the search for alternative solutions for the production of substitute fuels, in particular from non-fossil (biomass) fuels.
On the other hand, at night, the electricity production resources are scarcely used, a fact which is an incentive in the development of polygeneration type production facilities.
In order to reduce pollution, the method is known of converting combustible solids containing carbonaceous matter to oxygen diluted from recycled CO2, rather than to air, so as to produce gases which do not contain nitrogen. The method is also known of converting combustible solids by combustion in a thermochemical cycle in order to produce gases without nitrogen. However, these methods only produce electricity and are, thus, underutilized when production falls.
In order to produce a gas rich in hydrogen, particularly intended to be used by fuel cells and for the production of transport fuels, the method is known of reforming natural gas within catalyst tube bundles which are partially immersed in a dense fluidized bed. However, these systems use fuels for the purpose of heating the bed and water vapour to produce a synthesis gas rich in hydrogen.